~ Sharing Biblical and Prophetic Truths

Are You Ready?

One of my family’s favorite stories is the time when my twin brother and I were approximately six years old and were out in the yard playing with some yard tools that we had specifically been instructed not to touch. As the story went, my brother and I were fast and furious in the act of disobedience until I heard the screen door open then shut followed by my mother’s footsteps. As it has been told, I looked up, stuck my thumb in my mouth, and quickly made a b-line in the opposite direction. My brother on the other hand, was lost in the moment – never noticing the sound of the screen door slamming shut or the footsteps of my very displeased mother approaching. The story was told that my brother was so unaware of my mother’s “coming” until the very moment he was swatted on his backside. Other family members describe him as having the look of complete shock. On the other hand, I had escaped her wrath (by the skin of my teeth, I might add).

Are you watching and listening for the screen door to open? Are you looking for the one who knows you to come but you’re lost in the moment, continuing in your disobedience and living in complete oblivion? Will you take notice only after you’ve been punished and stand there then in utter disbelief?

One of the most impressionable parables in scripture to me is the one concerning the ten young virgins and the marriage supper. The virgins were supposed to be waiting on the groom by keeping oil in their lamps; day and night. In the Jewish wedding tradition, the bride knows that the groom IS coming but doesn’t know exactly the day or the hour. If she doesn’t prepare for Him, he will come (what seems) as a thief in the night. I can only imagine the feeling one might have when a thief enters one’s home. It’s not joyful anticipation but terror and great fear. If she does prepare for him, she is blessed and ready to go with him to the wedding supper that he has prepared for her in his absence.

In this parable Jesus spoke about five of those ten young virgins who were not prepared and let their oil run out. They had stopped watching for him and their senses had become dulled. Obviously, they had lost faith that the groom was ever going to do what he said he would. They were not watching for the door to open nor were they anticipating him. It makes me think of 1 Peter in scripture that says, “They will be saying, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

I suppose in my brother’s heart, he thought, “Mom’s not coming – it’s safe to

Where Can I currently purchase this book?Journal of a Sinner, Listening for that Still Small Voice